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Siesta Beach on Siesta Key in Sarasota County is the one people name.
The sand is about 99 percent quartz ground down to a powder, it stays cool in full sun, and it packs firm at the water line and stays loose higher up. Crescent Beach, just south on the same key, is the same sand with fewer people on it. The Walton County beaches - Grayton, Blue Mountain, Seagrove, Inlet Beach - are the same quartz and just as fine. If you want soft sand without a crowd, Topsail Hill Preserve in Walton County is reached by a shuttle or a walk through the dunes, which keeps the numbers down all year.
Sarasota County. 948 Beach Road on Siesta Key, and the sand is why people come: TripAdvisor named it the number one beach in the United States. Lifeguards. Restrooms, picnic shelters, and a historic pavilion with raised seating looking over the water.
Open the guide →Sarasota County. The stretch of Siesta Key running south from the public beach at Siesta Beach Park to Point of Rocks, with condominiums and rental homes behind it. Sarasota County's ways onto it are Beach Access 12 at 6490 Midnight Pass Road, open 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Beach Access 13 at 6900 Point of Rocks Road, open all day and night but with no parking, for walkers only.
Open the guide →Walton County. Walton County opened a new regional beach access here in June 2026, the Bets "Beachmama" Haynes Regional Beach Access at 44 Hotz Avenue in downtown Grayton Beach, just west of the Red Bar: restrooms, rinse showers, an observation deck, a boardwalk to the sand and a stop for the county's Beach Park and Ride tram.
Open the guide →Walton County. Regional Beach Access 36. Seasonal lifeguards and a beach conditions flag. Restrooms, parking, ADA restrooms, ADA parking and a water fountain. The access is run by a vendor rather than directly by the county.
Open the guide →Walton County. The Seagrove regional access. Restrooms and parking, with an ADA boardwalk, ADA parking and ADA restrooms. No lifeguard is listed here, unlike most of the county's other regional accesses.
Open the guide →Walton County. Three miles of white quartz sand a few minutes from Destin, with Topsail Hill itself standing 25 feet above sea level behind it, shaped like a ship's sail. Rare coastal dune lakes lie between the dunes, holding freshwater fish and drawing the Choctawhatchee beach mouse.
Open the guide →Two different answers, and the second one surprises people. On the coast, the clearest water is the Gulf off the Panhandle in calm summer weather, and the Keys - Bahia Honda, John Pennekamp and Dry Tortugas, where the water sits over sand and reef rather than river mud.
The Gulf side is calmer than the Atlantic side almost every day of the year, and the calmest water of all is behind a barrier island rather than in front of it.
The quiet beaches are the ones you cannot drive to. Cayo Costa and North Captiva in Lee County are reached by boat or ferry and have miles of sand with almost nobody on them.
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